Speaker 1: You're listening to playback a Variety podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Variety Awards editor Chris Tappy. Hello, Hello, have you right here?
Speaker 1: Oh cool, in the state of transitioning. It's going to
Speaker 1: be wonderful. I can tell you it's gonna be beautiful. Here,
Speaker 1: come sit down. Yeah, if you guys just sit over there. Um,
Speaker 1: he's gonna crab it a few candids, real quast, you
Speaker 1: have breakfast, thank you. Not not the purpose, but that's
Speaker 1: just your Yeah. I don't even know they got it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: mh Gary, he's just gonna grab a couple of quick
Speaker 1: candidates as if we're chatting. I just got a message
Speaker 1: from an win. Oh. Ess, I'm gonna bring this back
Speaker 1: word clean, give it to the good night. Last night
Speaker 1: it was um a good result. Ye have fun? Uh
Speaker 1: I did? Yeah? Yeah, Um, I was a little um shocked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: look overwhelmed by. But yeah, we had a nice We
Speaker 1: had a nice time. We had a very nice table.
Speaker 1: We had Sally Hawkins and Richard Jenkins, Jeffrey Rush So
Speaker 1: they kind of or mingle everybody at that put a soul.
Speaker 1: I don't know how they do it. I don't know
Speaker 1: how they work it out. The who's with who you know?
Speaker 1: But um, but enjoyed your tablemates. It's a nice table.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, it's uh yeah, let's get some more light.
Speaker 1: This is actually darker than usual. There. That's fine, thank you.
Speaker 1: All right, we're rolling by the way. Okay. Uh we've
Speaker 1: got Gary Oldman here today, star of Darkest Hour, SAG
Speaker 1: Award winning Star of Darkest Down. We were just talking about, uh,
Speaker 1: as I said in congratulations on that, you were quite
Speaker 1: emotional on the stage. You know what, what was striking
Speaker 1: you in the moment? What was well, I have no
Speaker 1: recollection now that the evening really, um it is a
Speaker 1: very wide pool of people that vote. I'm told I
Speaker 1: think it's like a hundred and twenty thousand or more. Um,
Speaker 1: so you're not it's not in the bag, you know
Speaker 1: you It really could have been anyone's I think. And
Speaker 1: so I was shocked, genuinely surprised two win and then
Speaker 1: it hit it just sort of it was very emotional
Speaker 1: and it just kind of hit me. And I think, ah,
Speaker 1: I remember Winona Rider leaping out of her seat in
Speaker 1: kissing me, and and I think the hug from Denzel
Speaker 1: on my way to the stage was was it was
Speaker 1: it was lovely. It was very touching. Tripped down memory
Speaker 1: lane on the way to the stage. Here Dracula there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, yeah, Dracula all those many many years ago.
Speaker 1: So it was great. It was a great It was
Speaker 1: a great night. And to be recognized by ones fellow
Speaker 1: actors is a is an honor. Indeed, before I dig
Speaker 1: in on the movie, the performance and a couple of
Speaker 1: other things, the this James Brown video I must talk about,
Speaker 1: which I understand. We owe a debt to you for
Speaker 1: to your wife. It's been making the circulation lately. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know talk about that? Was that just a fun
Speaker 1: bit of backstage you know, well, we you know, you've
Speaker 1: you've got You've arrived in the morning and you're looking
Speaker 1: really a four hours before you get to the set um,
Speaker 1: and then the crew, the cast, and the director arrive
Speaker 1: and then you rehearse, and then you work ten or
Speaker 1: twelve hour day and then you have the makeup removed
Speaker 1: for an hour in the evening. So you're looking at
Speaker 1: a very long day, um, and you you have to
Speaker 1: get into some kind of zen place. You have to
Speaker 1: find a headspace to sort of get you to get
Speaker 1: you through it. Um. And I was just very lucky
Speaker 1: that I had David Malanowski and Lucy Sibik, who were
Speaker 1: who two people who would sort of put put me
Speaker 1: together in the morning. Um. They they were just a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of fun to be around. And
Speaker 1: we and you kind of have to find the humor
Speaker 1: to just sort of get you. You know, you you
Speaker 1: come in at two thirty a m. Or three am
Speaker 1: on on a cold morning after you know, on day
Speaker 1: and then and the morning starts with your head being
Speaker 1: shaved and cold glue applied to your face. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got to you know, you have to sort of
Speaker 1: get through it somehow. So they were just they're just
Speaker 1: terrific people, not only great artists, but really really lovely
Speaker 1: people and great sense of humors. So we used to
Speaker 1: we used to yeah, um, it's a stress reliever in
Speaker 1: the in the trailer, and and we used to play
Speaker 1: we used to play music. There was a sort of
Speaker 1: it was a sort of ritual where there would be
Speaker 1: silence for a while and then m maybe at two
Speaker 1: hours in Dave would on the radio or then we'd
Speaker 1: start going through our iPhones and iTunes and and and playing.
Speaker 1: And he's a soul, he's a big funk soul guy Dave,
Speaker 1: so we we we used to play a lot of that.
Speaker 1: And then you know, I used to do silly James Brown,
Speaker 1: Winnie Winnie doing Brown and where you learned the moves
Speaker 1: from Captured by My by Chaselle my wife. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know clubs when I was a kid. Yeah, you still
Speaker 1: got it, man. I used to like, um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: was a big I used to like soul awesome. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of you know, the makeup and everything every day,
Speaker 1: You've been no stranger certainly to immersing yourself physically into
Speaker 1: a character, long line of roles like Dracula as we mentioned,
Speaker 1: and True Romance, Fifth Element, just lots of prosthetics and
Speaker 1: really getting into the physical space of the character. I
Speaker 1: don't imagine you would do that so much if you
Speaker 1: didn't love it right or that that it kind of
Speaker 1: feeds what you do. Well. I had a big, a big,
Speaker 1: big gap from it. I The last time I was
Speaker 1: in that kind of makeup I think was for Hannibal,
Speaker 1: the really Scott film, and that was six hours. But
Speaker 1: then I would only I would only work a four
Speaker 1: hour day in it um and that was the whole
Speaker 1: thing with contact lenses and they had They rigged up
Speaker 1: a device that held my eyes open, so I had
Speaker 1: no eyelids. I didn't blink and and you could only
Speaker 1: you could only it was every fifteen minutes they had
Speaker 1: to give me eye drops and release the eyelids to
Speaker 1: rest the eye. So it was a sort of very
Speaker 1: um a crazy process and I and I swore after
Speaker 1: that that I would never do it again. UM. And
Speaker 1: that was my you know, that was my life. They're
Speaker 1: done with with with that kind of makeup. UM. When
Speaker 1: this came up, with Darkest Hour came on the scene,
Speaker 1: it was it was a necessity. It was the only
Speaker 1: way to go. So I knew going in UM and
Speaker 1: and and Hannibal was seven eight days, you know. UM,
Speaker 1: so you're looking at Winston UM. You know, you're looking
Speaker 1: at fifty in that kind of makeup. UM. And then
Speaker 1: we had test makeups. So I think it's sixty one
Speaker 1: times that I had that I had the makeup on
Speaker 1: UM And yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot. It's
Speaker 1: a lot to go through. UM. But of course you're
Speaker 1: then working with Kazuhiro Suji, who designed designed the makeup.
Speaker 1: It was it was Lucy and Dave that that painted
Speaker 1: it and applied it on a daily basis, but it
Speaker 1: was but it was Kazoo who came up with the
Speaker 1: with with the look, and when you're working with someone
Speaker 1: like that and that kind of material, I mean, it
Speaker 1: really is like a synthetic skin. It's not cumbersome restrictive
Speaker 1: in any way. What does it do for you psychologically?
Speaker 1: Like working in the space, putting you you know, being
Speaker 1: disappeared into a role like that essentially, like is it
Speaker 1: helpful for you? Does it feel like something you have
Speaker 1: to act act past? Does it feel ever feel like
Speaker 1: you know, just for you personally? Well, the whole experience
Speaker 1: was very um immersive, um. Going back to the the
Speaker 1: sort of work. The homework on the role was a
Speaker 1: year um and that was a year of all really
Speaker 1: all things Churchill. I mean, it was just it was
Speaker 1: constantly in my he was constantly in my head. Then
Speaker 1: you had um four weeks rehearsal, which is sort of
Speaker 1: unheard up for a film where you got to really
Speaker 1: physicalize and vocalize the character and the set that the
Speaker 1: Sarah Greenwood's designs were just that they were so immersive
Speaker 1: and so detail out, and then you're looking in the
Speaker 1: mirror and you're at least seeing an essence of a
Speaker 1: spirit of of of Winston. So you are stepping in.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit like just really touching history
Speaker 1: and stepping back, you know, when you stepped back in time.
Speaker 1: You know, it's sort of so the whole um. A
Speaker 1: great deal of that is doing the work for you.
Speaker 1: You know, you use your imagination, of course, but but
Speaker 1: you would believe that you were in the war rooms.
Speaker 1: I mean we we visited several times and had a
Speaker 1: private tour of the place, and the curator feel read
Speaker 1: he was on set as a sort of technical advisor,
Speaker 1: and he couldn't he couldn't believe the war room set.
Speaker 1: He said it was, you know, and it was also
Speaker 1: it was also in case it had of course there
Speaker 1: were lights that Bruno used above us, but at times,
Speaker 1: you know, they would put ceilings in um. So you
Speaker 1: you know, it was amazing. You really felt that you
Speaker 1: were down there when you were doing your research. Well,
Speaker 1: what did you discover about Churchill that you didn't know
Speaker 1: that maybe you applied in your performance. He's such a
Speaker 1: well covered man that you know, it's not like I
Speaker 1: would have imagine you'd run into too many surprises. But yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is an extraordinary life. Um. And you know my
Speaker 1: curiosity is continues. You know, I still be reading about him.
Speaker 1: The eight hundred books um I think written about him,
Speaker 1: fifty books that he wrote himself. So there is a
Speaker 1: wealth of material. And I was just amazed at the
Speaker 1: well this first of all, this moment in time has
Speaker 1: has never really been fully documented, at least on film
Speaker 1: that's very specific defining sort of five or six weeks
Speaker 1: in in in n So that that that was, And
Speaker 1: that was a discovery because, Um, I didn't realize the
Speaker 1: resistance from his own cabinet and actually how perilously close
Speaker 1: we came to really appeal what the peace deal essentially
Speaker 1: it would have been a surrender. Um. But what I mean,
Speaker 1: what do you have? You have a man who is
Speaker 1: I mean he lived to ninety extraordinary life. When you
Speaker 1: think that he was, he was He was a heavy
Speaker 1: drinker and it was nothing unusual and in those days,
Speaker 1: I mean everybody drank. It's estimated that he smoked a
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five thousand cigars in his lifetime. That
Speaker 1: they have an estimate for that. Yeah, they've someone some Yeah,
Speaker 1: someone's work worked that out. Um. And then you've got,
Speaker 1: you know, for in four wars, he wrote fifty books.
Speaker 1: He wrote more words than Shakespeare and Dickens put together,
Speaker 1: painted something like almost six hundred paintings, had six hundred
Speaker 1: sixteen exhibitions at the Royal Academy, the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Speaker 1: I mean the list sort of just goes, it goes
Speaker 1: on and on and on. And was the man who
Speaker 1: stood up to the nuts see Tyranny Um. The quotes
Speaker 1: are endless. You know that this remarkable giant brain that
Speaker 1: he had. Um, So I've I have sort of developed
Speaker 1: a great appreciation for him. I mean he was a genius. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very very unique, very unique man. You've had a number
Speaker 1: of accolades this year, a big swell of support behind
Speaker 1: you this awards season. I think a lot of times
Speaker 1: with that comes a tendency to look back on one's career.
Speaker 1: Are you finding yourself in that position a lot lately
Speaker 1: to look back at your career? And no, I never do. No,
Speaker 1: No one's trying to play the lifetime achievement game with you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, there's been one of those. I think,
Speaker 1: um or yeah, just sort of one's body your work. Um,
Speaker 1: I think what keeps you going is um. Someone must
Speaker 1: asked me, they said, what what what's you know, what's
Speaker 1: the best? You know, what's your what's your favorite role?
Speaker 1: And I always say, you know, next week, the next one,
Speaker 1: you know. I think that's what sort of keeps you going.
Speaker 1: You know, if you if you get to sort of
Speaker 1: complacent and sort of self satisfied with it. I think
Speaker 1: that the wanting to um, wanting to work and make
Speaker 1: it and make it better and get better, and that's
Speaker 1: what sort of keeps you going. I mean, we had
Speaker 1: had a conversation at the Golden Gloves with Denzel Washington,
Speaker 1: who is at the moment, I think him rehearsal for
Speaker 1: the Iceman Conneth opens on Broadway, and he doesn't have
Speaker 1: to put himself through that. Um. He's he's playing Theodore Hitman.
Speaker 1: So Matt Mammoth t tanic thing, you know, a giant
Speaker 1: role um um, and he can make a living from
Speaker 1: screen acting. UM. But he said, I need I do
Speaker 1: need to do it. I need to feed to feed
Speaker 1: the actor in me. UM. But I don't. I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't tend to look um to look
Speaker 1: to look back. Honestly, couldn't tell you how many films
Speaker 1: I've made. I'd be very hard pushed to give you
Speaker 1: a list of them off the top of my head. Um,
Speaker 1: it's working, move on? Is that it? Well, it's just
Speaker 1: I think it's I think for me, why why doesn't
Speaker 1: it's old work and I'm looking to move forward and
Speaker 1: do new things. Um. Um, you know there are some
Speaker 1: there are some great ones, and I certainly appreciate the
Speaker 1: career I've had very I've been very lucky, very and
Speaker 1: I'm very grateful to it. But it's always just nice
Speaker 1: to look forward. Well, if you will indulge me, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna look back a little bit. If I could ask
Speaker 1: that favorite role question a little bit differently, like before,
Speaker 1: prior to this role, was there anything that comes to
Speaker 1: mind that was a particular challenge for you to inhabit
Speaker 1: that character. Maybe it was more of a stretch and
Speaker 1: so it was different, more difficult, much challenging for you
Speaker 1: to therefore take on the role. Anything come to mind
Speaker 1: for that? I find in a way the do you
Speaker 1: know what? It's a question that comes down to writing. Um,
Speaker 1: I find it, uh, find it easier to work on
Speaker 1: something when you've got when you've got a great screenplay. Um,
Speaker 1: a good writer gives you all the clues and maps
Speaker 1: out on the road for you, and then you just
Speaker 1: of course you apply instinct and intuition and talent and
Speaker 1: all all of those things. But you you have you
Speaker 1: you all you really need to do is follow the signposts. Um,
Speaker 1: Golden was quite challenging, believe it or not, which I'm
Speaker 1: sorry James Golden. Yeah, Um, you don't exactly have somebody
Speaker 1: can talk to other than maybe you know, cops or something,
Speaker 1: but like you can't yeah, yeah, yeah, and um, the
Speaker 1: Harry Potter because what you have to do is you
Speaker 1: have to make exposition character. Yeah, and that is tricky.
Speaker 1: You've got to make you're you're really furthering the it's
Speaker 1: plot and you have to make plu interesting and give
Speaker 1: it character. So I find that, Um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: all of course, it's always hard, you know. You you
Speaker 1: you go to as Jim Gordon, you go to a
Speaker 1: scene of a crime and Batman's Batman's already there. It's
Speaker 1: solving it, you know, and it takes a certain amount
Speaker 1: of it does take a certain amount of of technique too. Um,
Speaker 1: just to speak some of that dialogue with that situation,
Speaker 1: get me, you know, you're talking to a walkie talkie
Speaker 1: and or you're looking at green screen and you're you know,
Speaker 1: and you say, get me, I need a swat team
Speaker 1: and a chopper on the roof. You know, you know
Speaker 1: it's it's not Shakespeare. You know, you've got to. So
Speaker 1: I find that I found that quite quite um challenging
Speaker 1: as an actor, because it just seemed like words. Really
Speaker 1: it's like, you've got it, You've got Yeah, you've got
Speaker 1: to You've got to give it. Um, yeah, you have to.
Speaker 1: You know, the stakes are high, and that's the sort
Speaker 1: of emoment that and that's that that's the the emotion
Speaker 1: that that you have to uh convey, you have to
Speaker 1: convey the urgency of the situation. Um. And so I
Speaker 1: found those really I have found those um challenging. What
Speaker 1: about was there ever a role that was difficult for
Speaker 1: kind of the opposite reasons where it was where it
Speaker 1: cut kind of close to the bone, Maybe it was
Speaker 1: closer to who you are than you kind of anticipated
Speaker 1: or anything like that, m and therefore you felt more
Speaker 1: perhaps naked or something in the performing of it. I
Speaker 1: think I've stopped him. Well mm hmm, I forgot about
Speaker 1: you see, I forget, I forget, I forget. Yeah. Um yeah.
Speaker 1: George Smiley in Tinker was was a challenge because you
Speaker 1: had to make um he is a sort of no. Um,
Speaker 1: he's a character who is it blends in um, he's
Speaker 1: sort of um every man. He's just U very bland
Speaker 1: facing the crowd, you know, he's not conspicuous and and
Speaker 1: you and it's all in this giant brain that is
Speaker 1: that is working. Um. But he's very his his blood precious,
Speaker 1: very low, and he's very very still, and it's all
Speaker 1: really in the in the eyes and and you're looking
Speaker 1: for there there there there you know something. UM. So
Speaker 1: I think that was that was a test um and
Speaker 1: and initially I was very I felt I was very
Speaker 1: very in the shadow of Salc Guinness. You know, he
Speaker 1: had he had he was the face of George Smiley
Speaker 1: and had such a great success with it. That and
Speaker 1: of course the little Kari people, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a the huge those books. It has a great following,
Speaker 1: and Smiley as a very beloved character. Um. And for
Speaker 1: many of them, Guinness was was the physical incarnation of George.
Speaker 1: So that was that there were a few dragons there
Speaker 1: that I had to slam. Yeah. I got into a
Speaker 1: very very insecure headspace, you know, taking it as sort
Speaker 1: of taking it on or you were justly were rewarded
Speaker 1: with you know, and yeah and once once once, once
Speaker 1: you're in you know a lot of the lot of
Speaker 1: the anxiety that you have is is I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's almost like you forget, you forget what you do
Speaker 1: and you get, well I do. I can't speak for
Speaker 1: every actor, but I get you know, I have my
Speaker 1: my doubts and my insecurities and all the rest of it.
Speaker 1: And then of course when you get to the set
Speaker 1: and you do but you're doing the work. You know,
Speaker 1: you're doing the work. Um, you do the homework. But
Speaker 1: and it's this thing. I get to the set and
Speaker 1: then it's like, oh yeah, oh yeah, I know I
Speaker 1: know where I am. Oh yeah, this is why I do.
Speaker 1: I know how to do this? Yeah yeah, And that's
Speaker 1: I think, what really And that's what happened with with
Speaker 1: with George. I went down to the set on the
Speaker 1: first day for the first take and and Douglas who's
Speaker 1: who's Here's my sort of collaborate a long long time
Speaker 1: creative partner, Douglas Sabanski. Um, he was there, and I said, don't, don't,
Speaker 1: don't come down for the first take. I just want
Speaker 1: to go down and and don't. I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, but just let me. Let me just go
Speaker 1: and do the first take. Don't don't watch and m
Speaker 1: I wanted to get Yeah, I wanted to. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: wanted to just sort of get on the bicycle and
Speaker 1: and and see if I would fall off. And anyway,
Speaker 1: I went down there and took George around the block
Speaker 1: and then came back to him and said, yeah, it's okay,
Speaker 1: you can come down now. I'll tell you one of
Speaker 1: my favorites and I'll share this with your head. Sam
Speaker 1: Rockwell on the show a few weeks and we were
Speaker 1: talking about darkest hour in your work, and he was like,
Speaker 1: he's one of my favorite actors. Man. The first one
Speaker 1: he went to was one of my favorites in that
Speaker 1: state of grace. M hmm, just electric portrayal. You say
Speaker 1: you don't look back, so I don't know if you
Speaker 1: have many memories of it, but I have idea. Funny
Speaker 1: enough you mentioned it, I have I have a memory
Speaker 1: of it because I was only speaking about it in
Speaker 1: the other night at a Q and I. Um. I
Speaker 1: thought that I that was one that m I had
Speaker 1: this Irish accent, this sort of Westy accent, and really
Speaker 1: that's all I had. And it was just sound of fury,
Speaker 1: you know. And I I would we were reading scenes,
Speaker 1: and Sean Penn would then go off to in the
Speaker 1: corner with the director and they would whisper something and
Speaker 1: then come back and then we would read, you know,
Speaker 1: read more scenes, and then there'd be a little break,
Speaker 1: and then they would be sewn in the corner with
Speaker 1: the director and they were you know, you get paranoid
Speaker 1: because you think they are they talking about me. And
Speaker 1: I thought that they had already let one actor go
Speaker 1: and I thought I was the next. So I thought
Speaker 1: I was going to be fired. And and I couldn't
Speaker 1: find this character. Um, And it was just a voice.
Speaker 1: It was What I mean by that is that I
Speaker 1: didn't own it. It wasn't centered. And any way, at
Speaker 1: the eleventh hour, I went to a costume fitting and
Speaker 1: I put on a leather jacket and I flicked I
Speaker 1: was looking in the mirror and I flicked my hair.
Speaker 1: I had long hair at the time, and I flicked
Speaker 1: my hair and I went gun him. There he is ah,
Speaker 1: and the cloak of inspiration fell at the eleventh hour. Now,
Speaker 1: sometimes it falls early and sometimes it falls late. And
Speaker 1: and honestly and truly, there have been times when it
Speaker 1: has abandoned me. You know. Yeah, you just hope you're
Speaker 1: going to find something, you know, you need that. It's like,
Speaker 1: I need the hook. I've got to what you know
Speaker 1: for Churchill. Obviously, the the voice is very it's very famous.
Speaker 1: You know, the rhythms, the the the the meter, the
Speaker 1: the the inflection and the even the tombrother. The sound
Speaker 1: of the voice is it's notorious. But um, but what
Speaker 1: what struck me was the dynamism and the energy of
Speaker 1: the character from a lot of the not only from
Speaker 1: the news real footage that I was watching, but from
Speaker 1: the telling in the books of people that worked with
Speaker 1: him and around him. Um. So the physicality of Churchill
Speaker 1: was the first thing that that was the the energy
Speaker 1: of him. And there's brain whirling, Um, you know of
Speaker 1: five thousand miles an hour, and people that could you know,
Speaker 1: they couldn't keep up with him. Um. That was the
Speaker 1: that was the hook. That was what opened the door
Speaker 1: to sort of find him. Um. But it's amazing that
Speaker 1: you can you can go through a whole rehearsal and
Speaker 1: struggle and struggle with a character and a jacket and
Speaker 1: the flick of the head and then and that you
Speaker 1: can find it for you and um good directing. You know,
Speaker 1: you could struggle with a scene in rehearsal and a
Speaker 1: good director and it sounds really sort of blieb, but
Speaker 1: they could say that's good. Now take all the air
Speaker 1: out of it, take the pauses out, smarten it up,
Speaker 1: and um do it quicker, not not meaning rush it,
Speaker 1: but just smarten up the pace. And you can do
Speaker 1: that simple thing like that, and the whole scene, the
Speaker 1: whole thing can fall into place just from taking out
Speaker 1: the pauses. Chris Nolan on on Batman, you know he
Speaker 1: would he would step in sometimes and and his note
Speaker 1: would be he would just say, that was great, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's more at stake. Mhm. You get you get, you
Speaker 1: get it. You can I know what he means. So
Speaker 1: it's not like they have to It's not like they
Speaker 1: have to take you to one side and say, now,
Speaker 1: remember this character in his childhood. They don't have to
Speaker 1: go through the psychoanalysis of it. Just sometimes a little
Speaker 1: nudge um nick rogue once said to me. I asked him,
Speaker 1: I was We were in a very very weird track movie.
Speaker 1: I mean we were all grappling with what it was about.
Speaker 1: I stepped don't know what. Honest to this day, I
Speaker 1: still don't know when it was about. I got the
Speaker 1: job because I said to him. I met him at
Speaker 1: his house in London and he said, what did you
Speaker 1: think of the script? And I said, well, it's either
Speaker 1: the great It's either the greatest thing I've ever read,
Speaker 1: or it's the biggest load of bollocks I've over read.
Speaker 1: And he loved that and hired me and would often
Speaker 1: pull me to one side and say, I think you
Speaker 1: were right. I think it's a load of bollocks, but
Speaker 1: you know you. I was on a set and we
Speaker 1: were trying to Teresa Russell and I were trying to
Speaker 1: sort of navigate the scene and work out when it
Speaker 1: was about. And Nick said to me, it's about hope
Speaker 1: and charm and I got it. That's a great that's
Speaker 1: a really good note. Um, so it's I don't know
Speaker 1: how we got into this, but yeah, oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: finally got you. Looking back, it's what happened you did?
Speaker 1: I knew, I knew you I did want to ask
Speaker 1: you a couple of random things that just personal curiosities.
Speaker 1: I'd love to know how you ended up in a
Speaker 1: convertible with Axl Rose. Uh for the since I don't
Speaker 1: have a music video for Guns and Roses? Okay, how
Speaker 1: did that come to me that I had seen State
Speaker 1: of Grace? Yeah? They were big fans. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: called me up and said yeah and said what did
Speaker 1: I do? You know? We'd like to have Gary for
Speaker 1: Guns and Roses? And that's how that happened. Can you
Speaker 1: play this kind of sadistic mime? Like you're the devil
Speaker 1: and so you're playing but it's like a my mish
Speaker 1: kind of not the unique, not the only time I
Speaker 1: played the not the only time I played the Devil.
Speaker 1: There's someone trying to get in here right there there,
Speaker 1: they're eager to talk to you. Uh. Performance capture. I'm
Speaker 1: always curious about how actors take to performance capture. You
Speaker 1: worked on Christmas Carol and The Rubbers of Macas, So
Speaker 1: what did you think about the performance capture technique? Um,
Speaker 1: it's okay. Was that one rough? No? It was great.
Speaker 1: Different actors take to it in different ways. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that the techniques of advanced since since we did we
Speaker 1: we did it. It was funny everybody just sort of said,
Speaker 1: it's like theater, isn't it. It's like it's just like theater.
Speaker 1: And often the people that say that the people that
Speaker 1: have never done theater. I didn't think it was like
Speaker 1: sator at all. No, there's nothing like theater. Imagine, I
Speaker 1: mean theater wearing pajamas with all these things on you.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I like I like props, and I like
Speaker 1: props and clothes and the tactile tangible things you like performance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's an experience working with with with Bob
Speaker 1: and Jim that was wonderful. You know, it was wonderful
Speaker 1: to work with Jim Carrie and I've admired Bob's and
Speaker 1: mechas for for years, so that that that part of
Speaker 1: it was was was glorious. It was did I Oh,
Speaker 1: yeah I did. I did a motion capture video game.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, nice people, similar experience for nice people. So
Speaker 1: the physical immersion, you love, digital immersion not so much.
Speaker 1: I guess where we're I'm not no, I'm not to
Speaker 1: sound like a snob, but I still wish we were
Speaker 1: shooting on film. I mean, only a few people are. Um,
Speaker 1: one is an electronic process and the other one is chemical.
Speaker 1: And there's a certain emotion to it that there's it's
Speaker 1: more emotional to me. And what what what just what
Speaker 1: the film to the I don't know what it what
Speaker 1: it is, but and I know that this technology is
Speaker 1: becoming more and more and more and more perfected. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm a good I'm a good old fashioned
Speaker 1: give me, give me some props and some costumes. You
Speaker 1: get your wish on Darkest Hour? Oh oh boy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and everyone should go see that movie. Um, it's I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's still playing everywhere, so check it out. Gary
Speaker 1: has been duly rewarded all season and hopefully it keeps going.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on everything so far. Thank you, and I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you doing my show. Yeah so much. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1: We have us nous select my success in under terminally
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